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  Thank you, and good night.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “Holy crap, can you believe that?” Willie said. “He has actually dismissed the entire Army.”

  “It is a stupid and empty gesture,” Jake said. “He destroyed the Army with his incompetent meddling, so there is no more Army anyway. He is just saying this to make it appear as if he is still in charge.”

  “Who were the idiots who voted for this man?” Clay asked. “How could we have possibly elected someone like this?”

  “When more than half the voting public got their news and opinions from stand-up comedians, what did you expect?” Jake asked.

  “I don’t know,” Clay replied. “But I sure didn’t expect anything like this.”

  “Always before, when our country got into serious straits someone would say something like, ‘We are Americans, we’ve been through hard times before. We got through that, and we’ll get through this,’” John said. He shook his head. “But I don’t think we have ever been through anything like this.”

  “Anybody else broadcasting?” Jake asked.

  “There’s nothing left on this frequency but carrier wave,” Willie said. “Let me see what else I can find.”

  El huracán hará la recalada en Point de Mobile antes de medianoche esta noche. Es ahora una categoría cinco, pero disminuirá en la fuerza antes de la recalada a categoría tres . . .

  “I’ll see if I can find something in English,” Willie said.

  “No, wait! It’s a hurricane!” Marcus said, holding his hand out to stop Willie.

  “A hurricane? Where? When?”

  “It’s in the Gulf now, should make landfall by midnight tonight at Mobile Point.”

  “Mobile Point? Isn’t that where Fort Morgan is?” John asked.

  “Yes,” Jake said. “Marcus, what’s the strength, did he say?”

  “It’s a cat five now,” Marcus said. “They are saying it should be a three by landfall.”

  “Whoa, that’s quite a storm.”

  “Does that change our plans any?” Deon asked. “I mean, do we still plan to go to Fort Morgan?”

  “Fort Morgan has been there since 1834,” Jake said. “I imagine it has gone through its share of storms. We’re still going. But we are going to get a lot of rain and wind here tonight, so we need to be ready for it.”

  Willie continued to search the dial, stopping when he heard English being spoken. It was not only English, it was English with a British accent.

  This is the BBC World Broadcast on 5.110 megahertz. Now, here is the news.

  Authorities in Southampton have stopped looking for survivors and are now cordoning off the entire area to prevent entry into the contaminated area. The final count of casualties is believed to be a little over one hundred fifty thousand dead, with another one hundred thousand injured. There is no way of knowing the number of people who will ultimately die of radiation exposure, though it is thought to be very high.

  There is little news out of Germany or Spain, we know only that they, too, had nuclear bombs explode in their countries. France reports an expected death total of one and one half million. So far there has been no news of any sort from Israel—indeed, we do not know if the country yet exists.

  Caliph Rafeek Syed has announced the formation of the Greater Islamic Caliphate of Allah, composed of the former nations of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yazikistan. That association, if true, would constitute a greater power than all of Europe, and what is left of the New World Collective.

  We now know that every bomb that exploded in Europe, as well as the three that exploded in the New World Collective, were delivered on board ships. The Greater Islamic Caliphate of Allah has taken credit for the blasts, and has declared that the suicide bombers, as well as the unsuspecting crewmen of all three ships, are martyrs and now in paradise.

  Supreme Leader Ohmshidi is no longer in New World City, but continues to make pronouncements from undisclosed locations. In his latest broadcast, he announced the dissolution of Congress and the Supreme Court, though such action is meaningless at the present, since the United States, or the New World Collective as the country is now known, has ceased to exist as a nation.

  In addition to the loss of life and extreme damage wrought by the three atomic bombs, the rest of the former United States is in far more dire straits than any of the European Union countries. For all intent and purposes, the U.S. no longer has a functioning government. It has no viable currency, which doesn’t matter as there is no longer a commercial enterprise in operation within the borders of what was once the United States. All transportation has come to a halt and the supply of food is becoming very critical in all areas of the country. Electricity and running water have been terminated, as has all telephone service. There are no broadcast facilities in operation, not even at the local level, though we have picked up some shortwave transmissions, including those of one-time right-wing television host, George Gregoire. There are no policemen on duty anywhere in the entire nation, nor is there martial law. There can be no martial law because there is no military.

  At a NATO meeting yesterday, it was decided that those nations who have not suffered a nuclear attack would make an attempt to send food and supplies to the stricken nations as soon as possible. There was also some discussion as to whether NATO should send a contingent of military to the NWC to help in restoring and maintaining order in the affected nations, though no action was taken.

  Prime Minister Corey Wellington said yesterday that while he is confident that the United Kingdom will survive the single nuclear bomb blast that occurred on British soil, he fears that the nuclear explosions in the United States, on top of what the nation was already experiencing there, will make recovery impossible. He is personally saddened by the terrible conditions of what was “once the preeminent superpower of the world.”

  “The United States was always the leader in, and set the standard for, aid to countries in need,” the prime minister said. “How sad it is that such a powerful and benevolent nation could have been brought to its knees by an inept and ultimately destructive president. We cannot, and we will not turn our back on our American cousins.”

  This is BBC and this has been the news.

  “Damn,” Clay said. “It looks now like the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket.”

  “What happened has happened,” Jake said. “But we can’t look back now. We have to keep our eyes on what is in front of us. We have to survive.”

  “Survive, then what?” Karin said. “What do we do then? Do we just live out the rest of our lives in isolation?”

  “You heard Gregoire. There will be others like us,” Jake said. “We will establish contact with them.”

  “And once we establish contact, then what?”

  “We’re not ready yet to decide then what,” Jake said. “As I said, our first duty is to survive. And we do that by facing one challenge at a time, one day at a time.”

  The Dunes, Fort Morgan—Saturday, August 4

  James Laney stood on the roof of The Indies, a seven-story condo built ten years earlier for people who wanted a vacation beach home for themselves, and also for those who wanted investment rental property.

  Not one unit was occupied now, as many had been taken over by the bank in foreclosures. Even those units that were owned outright stood empty now because there was no fuel available for the owners to come down, nor incentive to do so, since there was neither electricity nor running water.

  A few minutes earlier James had climbed the stairs to the top of The Indies in order to have a better view of the Gulf and, more importantly, the sky over the Gulf.

  “We’ve got a hurricane comin’,” he had announced that morning to Jerry Cornett and Bob Varney. “I can feel it in my ankles and in my knees.”

  Since James had accurately forecasted both Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, Jerry and Bob took him seriously. They were sitting at a table on the deck behind James’s house when he
came back.

  “Did you see anything?” Jerry asked.

  “No,” James said. “But I know damn well one is out there.”

  “What are we going to do?” Bob asked.

  “What can we do? If we combined what fuel we have left and all crowded into the same car, it would not be enough to get us away from the storm,” James said. “And even if we did we wouldn’t have enough fuel to come back here. We don’t have any choice. We are going to ride it out.”

  “I thought we said that, after Katrina, we weren’t going to ride another one out,” Bob said.

  “Yeah, we did say that,” James agreed. “But I don’t think we have a choice now.”

  “James is right,” Jerry said. “We don’t have any choice.”

  “Jerry, your house is right down on the front line,” James said. “You and Gaye might be better off coming here to stay with Cille and me.”

  “Yeah, I think we will. What about you, Bob?”

  “We’re a little farther back from the beach than James, even,” Bob said. “We’ll ride it out there, then come back over here after it passes.”

  Because there was no functioning TV or radio, Bob and the others of the little group had no news on the hurricane with regard to either its strength, or its name. They took it upon themselves to name the storm, calling it Hurricane Ohmshidi, declaring that no matter how strong it was, it couldn’t possibly do more damage than the president had already done.

  Bob convinced Ellen that they, and Charley, should ride out the storm in their minivan. “It presents less of a surface to the wind,” he explained. “Besides, if you can drive a car at a hundred miles an hour on the highway, it seems reasonable to assume that the car can withstand one-hundred-mile-per-hour winds.”

  The wind started increasing in strength at about six o’clock that evening, getting progressively stronger until midnight. Bob, Ellen, and Charley were in their Toyota Sienna, looking through the windshield onto the street in front of their house. The wind was howling like the engines of a jet airliner sitting on the end of the runway just starting its takeoff run, and the minivan was buffeted about like an airplane flying through rough air.

  The rain that pelted the windshield made it very difficult to see, because each drop of rain was filled with sand that had blown up from the beach. When they could see, they saw roofs from houses, balconies, outside steps, and large pieces of wood tumbling by in front of them. Bob had parked under his house, so the van had some protection from the tumbling debris by the large doubly braced stilts upon which his house set.

  At midnight the eye passed over them and everything stilled. With no rain nor wind, Bob flashed on the lights so they could see. The street was piled high with wreckage from houses that had fallen before the storm.

  Bob had a small, handheld, two-way radio. He depressed the talk button. “James, do you hear me?”

  “Yeah, I hear you.”

  “You folks making out all right over there?”

  “We’re fine,” James said. “But there is water all the way up to the back of my property line. There’s water from here all the way down to the Gulf. How are you folks doing?”

  “The car is getting buffeted around quite a bit, but other than that we are doing fine.”

  “You can always come over here if you want.”

  “No, we’ve come this far, we’ll ride the rest of it out. Fact is, I don’t want to go outside now, anyway, because the wind is picking up again.”

  “All right, we’ll see you in the morning.”

  When the rain started again, Bob put his seat back down.

  “What are you doing?” Ellen asked.

  “I’m going to sleep.”

  “In this? How can you sleep in this?”

  “What else is there to do?” Bob asked.

  Charley had been sitting on Ellen’s lap, but he jumped over onto Bob and lay down on top of him. He was shaking badly.

  “You don’t need to be afraid, Charley Dog,” Bob said. “You aren’t going to get wet or blown away.”

  “I hope that’s true for all of us,” Ellen said.

  Bob reached up to take her hand. “It could be worse,” he said.

  “How could it be worse?”

  “This could be ten years ago when my mother and your mother were still alive, and they could both be in the backseat.”

  Ellen laughed. “You’re right,” she said. “It could be worse.”

  Though the noise of the storm and the wind continued unabated for at least seven more hours, from midnight until seven o’clock the next morning, Bob went to sleep. He didn’t wake until Ellen shook his shoulder.

  “What is it?”

  “The storm has stopped,” Ellen said.

  “Good,” Bob said. He put his seat back up. “Did you get any sleep?”

  “ No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Someone had to stay awake.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why,” Ellen said. “It’s just that somebody needed to stay awake.”

  “I appreciate your dedication to duty,” Bob said.

  The rain had stopped, and they could see, but the wind, while no longer at hurricane strength, was still blowing very hard. However, the wind had stilled enough that large pieces of debris were no longer flying by.

  “Let’s go over and see how the others fared,” Bob suggested.

  Walking was difficult, but by leaning into the wind, they were able to stay on their feet. Charley could not stand up against it, and was rolled up by the wind, so Bob had to carry him. When they reached James’s house, they saw that the water had come up to the very edge of his property. Every other house in the compound, at least those that remained standing, were in water that was halfway up the stilts upon which all the houses were mounted. They were surprised to see two women with James and the others.

  James introduced them as Sarah Miller, who was twenty-one, and Becky Jackson, her aunt. Though she was Sarah’s aunt, Becky was only twenty-three.

  “They were in the Carpe Diem house,” James explained. “That’s where they rode out the storm last night.”

  “Whoa, Carpe Diem is under water up to the first floor, isn’t it?” Bob asked.

  “Yes,” Becky said.

  “I’ll bet it was a frightening night.”

  “I’ve never been so afraid in my life,” Sarah said.

  “We thought we were the only ones out here, until Mr. Laney came over in his boat to get us this morning,” Becky said.

  “What in the world were you doing there?”

  “We had a gift shop in Mobile, but when everything started going bad, we had to close our shop. Then things got a little dangerous there. My folks have this place down here so we came down, thinking it would be safer,” Becky said.

  “Of course, without TV or radio, we had no idea we were coming right into the middle of a hurricane. We got here yesterday morning, the hurricane hit last night,” Sarah added.

  “You’re lucky the house didn’t blow away,” Cille said. “So many of them have.”

  “Nineteen in The Dunes alone,” James said. “Including Jerry’s house.”

  “I’m sorry, Jerry,” Bob said.

  “It could’ve been worse,” Jerry said. “Gaye and I could have been in it.”

  “I guess that’s right.”

  “Wait until you see the front of The Indies condo,” James said. “The entire front wall came down last night. It looks like a giant dollhouse. You can see into every unit in the building.”

  “And we’re going to have to live with this a long time,” Bob said. “It’s not like it was with Katrina and Ivan when everyone started rebuilding right away.”

  “At least we don’t have to worry about the power coming back,” Jerry said. “Because it never is coming back.”

  “I’d love to know what’s going on in the world,” Bob said. “It would be nice if they’ve impeached Ohmshidi. Surely, by now, those idiots in Washington have figured
out that this idiot is the one who totally destroyed our economy.”

  “We don’t have a government anymore,” Becky said.

  “You can say that again. I mean if they are just going to sit by and watch Ohmshidi destroy us without doing a thing to stop him . . .”

  “No, I mean seriously. Since the three atom bombs, Ohmshidi has dissolved the government.”

  “Three atom bombs? Government dissolved? What are you talking about?” Bob asked.

  “And where are you getting all this information?” Jerry added.

  “There is a man in Mobile who lives close to us, who has a shortwave radio,” Becky said. “Boston, New York, and, I think Norfolk, were all hit with nuclear bombs.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Jerry said. “It’s not enough I’ve lost my house. We’re losing our entire country.”

  “Losing our country?” James said. “Sounds to me like we have lost it.”

  “Well, there’s one good thing,” Bob said.

  “What’s that?”

  “It can’t get any worse.”

  Despite himself, Jerry laughed. “And that’s a good thing?”

  “Any port in a storm.”

  “Oh, don’t talk any more about storms,” Becky said. “The one we had last night was enough.”

  “Well, we all made it through, so what do you say we have some breakfast?” Jerry suggested.

  “Sounds good to me,” Cille said.

  “How about biscuits and gravy?” Bob asked.

  “Biscuits and gravy? You’ve got biscuits and gravy?” Becky asked. “How? I mean, where did you get it?”

  “You just don’t know my talent,” Bob said. “I can make something out of nothing.”

  Ellen laughed. “He’s telling you a big one. But he is good at making do. And since nearly every house out here had a well-stocked pantry and there is nobody here anymore, we have sort of inherited it. Flour, cornmeal, canned vegetables, condensed milk, and several canned meat products.”

  “What about water?”